Swivelling the spotlight: stardom, celebrity and ‘me’

Celebrity studies critiques the ways in which celebrity culture constructs discourses of authenticity and disclosure, offering the cultural and economic circulation of the ‘private’ self. Rarely, however, do we turn the spotlight on ourselves as not only scholars of stardom and celebrity, but also part of the audience. Autoethnography has become increasingly important across different disciplines, although its status within media and cultural studies is less visible and secure, not least because the emphasis on personal attachments to media forms may threaten the discipline’s still contested claim to cultural legitimacy. The study of stars and celebrities has often found itself at the ‘lower’ end of this already debased continuum, perhaps making such tensions particularly acute. Based on three personal narratives of engagements with stars and celebrities, this co-authored article explores the potential relationships between autoethnography and celebrity studies, and considers the personal, intellectual, and political implications of bringing the scholar into the celebrity frame

Feminist approaches to Anorexia Nervosa: a qualitative study of a treatment group

Background: Eating disorders (EDs) are now often approached as biopsychosocial problems. But it has been suggested by scholars interested in sociocultural factors that all is not equal within this biospsychosocial framework, with the ‘social’ aspects of the equation relegated to secondary factors within ED treatment contexts. Although sociocultural influences are well-established as risk factors for EDs, the exploration of whether or how such perspectives are useful in treatment has been little explored. In responding to this context, this article seeks to discuss and evaluate a 10 week closed group intervention based on feminist approaches to EDs at a residential eating disorder clinic in the East of England. Methods: The data was collected via one-to-one qualitative interviews and then analysed using thematic discourse analysis. Results: The participants suggested that the groups were helpful in enabling them to situate their problem within a broader cultural and group context, that they could operate as a form of ‘protection’ from ideologies regarding femininity, and that a focus on the societal contexts for EDs could potentially reduce feelings of self-blame. At the same time, the research pointed to the complexities of participants considering societal rather than individualised explanations for their problems, whilst it also confronted the implications of ambivalent responses toward feminism. Conclusions: Highly visible sociocultural factors in EDs – such as gender - may often be overlooked in ED clinical contexts. Although based on limited data, this research raises questions about the marginalisation of sociocultural factors in treatment, and the benefits and challenges including the latter may involve

How Do You Build a "Culture of Health"? A Critical Analysis of Challenges and Opportunities from Medical Anthropology.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Culture of Health Action Framework aims to "make health a shared value" and improve population health equity through widespread culture change. The authors draw upon their expertise as anthropologists to identify 3 challenges that they believe must be addressed in order to effectively achieve the health equity and population health improvement goals of the Culture of Health initiative: clarifying and demystifying the concept of "culture," contextualizing "community" within networks of power and inequality, and confronting the crises of trust and solidarity in the contemporary United States. The authors suggest that those who seek to build a "Culture of Health" refine their understanding of how "culture" is experienced, advocate for policies and practices that break down unhealthy consolidations of power, and innovate solutions to building consensus in a divided nation

Design requirements for effective hybrid decision making with Evolvable Assembly Systems

This paper examines 10 challenges for making automation a team player (Klein et al., 2004) in the context of Evolvable Assembly Systems (EAS) with the aim of delivering requirements for effective hybrid human-automation decision making. Specific decision making use cases for a demonstrator system were analysed to capture opportunities and requirements for effective human-agent cooperative decision making. These requirements covered agent design, human-machine interface design, context aware computing requirements and human competency. As such, the paper provides concrete examples of how general principles for hybrid decision making can be applied to EAS, and presents a pilot of a method for future requirements elicitation

Using TEI for an Endangered Language Lexical Resource: The Nxaʔamxcín Database-Dictionary Project

This paper describes the evolution of a lexical resource project for Nxaʔamxcín, an endangered Salish language, from the project’s inception in the 1990s, based on legacy materials recorded in the 1960s and 1970s, to its current form as an online database that is transformable into various print and web-based formats for varying uses. We illustrate how we are using TEI P5 for data-encoding and archiving and show that TEI is a mature, reliable, flexible standard which is a valuable tool for lexical and morphological markup and for the production of lexical resources. Lexical resource creation, as is the case with language documentation and description more generally, benefits from portability and thus from conformance to standards (Bird and Simons 2003, Thieberger 2011). This paper therefore also discusses standards-harmonization, focusing on our attempt to achieve interoperability in format and terminology between our database and standards proposed for LMF, RELISH and GOLD. We show that, while it is possible to achieve interoperability, ultimately it is difficult to do so convincingly, thus raising questions about what conformance to standards means in practice.National Foreign Language Resource Cente

Reflections on the Arts, Environment, and Culture After Ten Years of The Goose

To mark the tenth anniversary of The Goose, we asked prominent ecologically-minded scholars, writers, artists, and educators from across Canada to reflect on the relationship between the arts, culture, and the environment. Their comments illuminate a wide range of triumphs and tensions, from the politics and practices of environmentalist writing and art, to the connections between the environment and matters of diversity and justice, to the past and future of ALECC (Association for Literature, Environment, and Culture in Canada), to the world of a single poem

Associations between Fall Distance, Age, and Trauma Outcomes in Older Adult Patients

Introduction. Falls are the leading cause of injury death amongolder adults. This study sought to determine if there are differencesbetween fall distance (ground level vs greater than groundlevel) and age (old vs very old) in terms of in-hospital mortality,orthopedic consultations, and neurological consultations. Methods. A retrospective trauma registry review was conductedof older adult patients (aged > 65 years), admitted to aMidwestern Level I trauma facility (2005 - 2010) due to a fall.Results. Of the 1,064 patients analyzed, the majority fell fromground level compared to greater than ground level (64% and36%, respectively). Median age was 80 years. Fall distance wasnot associated significantly with in-hospital mortality (OR0.88; CI 0.50 - 1.54) or neurological consultations (OR 1.02; CI0.72 - 1.43), but was associated with orthopedic consultations(OR 1.49; CI 1.09 - 2.04). Age was not associated with in-hospitalmortality or neurological or orthopedic consultations. Conclusions. Fall distance was not associated with in-hospitalmortality or receiving a neurological consultation.However, older adults who fell from greater than groundlevel were more likely to receive orthopedic consultations.There were no differences in in-hospital mortality or receivinga neurological or orthopedic consultation based onage. These findings indicated that as the older adult populationincreases, burden of care will increase for trauma centersand neurological services. KS J Med 2016;9(3):54-57

Potential effects of the proposed transatlantic trade and investment partnership on selected developing countries

On 13 February 2013, the President of the United States, the President of the European Commission and the President of the European Council jointly announced that the EU and the US had agreed to launch negotiations on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). According to the final report of the High Level Working Group on Jobs and Growth (HLWG), the TTIP will aim at the: - elimination or reduction of conventional barriers to trade in goods, such as tariffs and tariff-rate quotas - elimination, reduction, or prevention of barriers to trade in goods, services, and investment - enhanced compatibility of regulations and standards elimination, reduction, or prevention of unnecessary “behind the border” NTBs to trade in all categories - enhanced cooperation for the development of rules and principles on global issues of common concern and also for the achievement of shared global economic goals This paper evaluates some of the potential effects of EU-US TTIP economic integration on the trade in goods of 43 low-income countries (LIC). It first assesses the impact of removing the most-favoured nation (MFN) tariffs that apply to trade between the EU and the US. It then examines the impact of regulatory integration on sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures and technical barriers to trade (TBT) on LIC